Wednesday, October 1

The getting of wisdom

Wisdom for it lies
innateIn humility, a saving graceWisdom In love; in
delight, With a Sprits power Unrequited love now renewed In peace Now

Instead of attempting an
essay on wisdom I composed the above short poem. Today we have an ever
increasing number of smart people, but we are not seeing a commensurate number
who are wise. Philosophy, which has at its heart a love of wisdom, can help us
toconsider wisdom in the sense of
living more fruitful and happy lives.

8 comments:

Intelligence can be measured in tests, but there are none for measuring wisdom. It seems to me what's missing is something that can't be taught in our schools as they are - namely, an aptitude for reflection.

Very true Susan!!From my limited experience with schoolchildren and young adults both here and broad, given the opportunity, they reflect with great gusto on material you present, to draw pictures with their thoughtful essays to the extent I was truly astonished!! Best wishes

To acquire wisdom we need to pause, meditate and reflect; we need to take time out from the hurly burly of everyday life. That takes effort of the kind that does not sit comfortably with people who feel that 'to do nothing' is unacceptable in a busy-busy world, whilst filling time with trivial pursuits is important.

Well said Tom. Let us not hide behind the veil of this too busy thing!! I took delight when I was working, perhaps in egoistic fervour, to those who queried my contemplative inactivity, “indeed I seek a new path now, away from what in untimely haste created such an almighty mess.” The “idols” of the business world as in the “power point presentation” whose dot points enslaves its authors and audience to mediocrity, or boredom must be abandoned. So I armed myself with prior contemplations, a blank white board to print out what was noted, a felt pen, and to have clearly etched just a few points I thought were relevant, in all of the many presentations I made – which served me well. As together they served to fuse a union of goodwill and even on odd occasions perhaps even wisdom in understanding one another, from which point much more was possible. Best wishes

Too busy indeed, and so eager to latch onto and repeat the latest expert opinion, rather than thinking for themselves. This is what our culture of media overload has done: replaced discussion and reflection with friends and family with watching television.

Hi Halle Indeed your sentiments was echoed by friend visiting , just a few hours later after reading your comment, lamenting the fact it was rather obvious from many of her recent conversations they were simply repeating what some expert had said, in the absence of any prior thinking about the matter for themselves. In Australia today, we only have one newspaper left that actually employs specialist journalists to cover news and opinion within their area of expertise. Little wonder you have headline grabbing pieces with little substance or depth.Best wishes

About Me

I have worked in the roles as Company Secretary or Divisional financial executive with larger Australian based multinational companies before changing careers in favour of sales and marketing for the latter 12 years of business life.
My particular interests include corporate social responsibility, ethics and research into more sustainable business practices.
I am a fellow of CPA Australia and an Associate member of the Governance Institute of Australia which was previously called the Chartered Secretaries Australia. I am chairman of the Malawi Support group who are a small group of catholic parishioners who raise funds to support a sister parish in Malawi.